Ravi DeRossi of Mayahuel and Death & Co. Will Open Rum Bar

It hasn’t even been a year since Ravi DeRossi (Bourgeois Pig, Desnuda, and Death & Co.) opened Mayahuel, but we’ve now gotten word that in the first week of January, he’ll open a Cuban sandwich shop at 443 Sixth Street, right down the street from the tequila bar. The small, brightly tiled space, called Cienfuegos, will serve medianoches as well as Sloppy Joes (some say the sandwich originated in a Havana bar called, yes, Sloppy Joe’s), and if that isn’t enough to get you excited, it will be followed in February by a second-floor rum lounge (and then, after that, a Cuban-minded restaurant on the corner at 95 Avenue A).

General manager Miguel Calvo (of Global 33 and 71 Clinton) is helping design the space, and tells us, “We’re not doing a Miami Cuba, we’re doing an old colonial, grandiose Cuba — it’s not going to be what people expect.” Think distressed walls, wingback chairs, and some play on 100 candles (after the place’s name, which is also a town in Calvo’s native Cuba). A mixologist hasn’t been named (we can only wonder whether Philip Ward will be involved; Luis Gonzales of Mayahuel et al. will do the food), but rest assured that punch bowls will be in full effect.